Join the Cornell University Department of for the premiere weekend of Locally Grown Dance (LGD) 2021 (April 7–10, 7:30 & 8:30 p.m., online).
Locally Grown Dance 2021 elaborates on the work of solos choreographed by the dancers interpreting the current political and cultural climate, offering moments of reflection and escapism. LGD 2021 is directed by choreographers/directors Jumay Chu and Byron Suber who have taught together in the Department of for over thirty years. Collaborating closely with PMA colleagues in film, set, lighting, and costume designs, the work of the concert reveals a paradox: the creative process in the act of making is intensely present in the live streaming of the concert; yet our experience of seeing the videos, although present and live, captures the past, recovering a different memory.
Expanding on the solo choreographies from the December 2020 MLGD, new material has been created for LGD 2021. Suber is still working with solos but, with the addition of the production elements in design, has added a dramatic intensity beyond what was available in December’s studio footage. Suber has also moved from B&W to extreme saturated color. The initial idea was to have been out of quarantine by now but instead of an expression of actual freedom from confinement, isolation has been redefined in terms of fantasy, hope, and the massive obstacles we are working to overcome expressed through theatrical imagination and intervention. Chu and the dancers of Atelier 320 explore ideas of seeing and its different ways of identifying meaning. Working with moveable plexiglass frames, the dancers reflect these times in deconstructing the illusion of continuity to find new references of experience.
The online exhibition features some of the original music from December but also new original compositions by Syau-Cheng Lai, Warren Cross (PMA senior lecturer), Max Buckholtz (PMA accompanist), and Annie Lewandowski (Music senior lecturer) with her band member Thomas Bonvalet in their latest album of Powerdove.
Reserve your free ticket at schwartztickets.com. A link to the performance will be emailed to you prior to showtime.
